News Addiction and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Unfortunately I am a news junkie. I have no idea why. I suppose there was a time when I had to keep abreast of what was happening and I also enjoyed knowing what was going on in the world outside the United Kingdom. I have, over the years, developed a habit of watching the BBC 6 O'Clock and the Scottish News every evening and I often switch the television on at 10pm and watch the ITV News. Of course every time anything happens of significance my iPhone lets me know instantly. So I knew instantly that the new Royal child was born (and gave a sigh of relief that we would not be watching days of pictures of St Mary's Hospital) and that people had been killed in Toronto before the van had come to a halt.

Of course there is occasionally Good News. Very occasionally.

When the news programmes that I have mentioned are on the television I find it hard to do anything else so that is 90 minutes a day wasted apart from the times when I have my evening meal between 6 and 7 pm (when I can't then do a crossword whilst I eat).

I gave up cigarettes in 1967 and never missed them from the moment (just after 9 in the morning in my office) that I threw the box of 48 Piccadilly Tipped across the office (I'd smoked 2) and said that I'd never smoke another cigarette as long as I lived. I stopped my habitual 2 glasses of wine at 6pm (when the news starts) last September and, whilst I haven't given up alcohol in general or wine in particular I no longer drink anywhere near the 14 units per week recommended as a maximum and I don't miss it. I didn't even take a conscious decision to cut down.

So why can't I stop watching the news programmes?

I have made a wee start tonight. I stopped watching the 10 0'clock news before the programme ended and decided to watch a Prom concert from the 2017 season that I recorded (I record most of them).  The conductor is Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. She is a Lithuanian conductor who has been music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra since September 2016. She is only about 32 and is exceptionally talented and brings a breath of fresh air to established works. Few things could persuade me to go to Birmingham again but the opportunity to watch her conduct the BSO would be one of them.

Unbelievable

I caught an article on BBC2's news roundup about someone from the UN or a similar body staying at a hotel in Syria which such people stay at because it's regarded as being as safe as any hotel can be there. The person had written a review on TripAdvisor saying that the hotel was good but criticising the shortage of water. Now it seems so implausible to me that I would love to think that I got the whole thing wrong but I didn't. I might have got the detail wrong but not the gist of it.

It made me think just how bizarre are our thought processes these days. Millions in Syria are starving and dying of thirst not to mention those being killed by armaments of one sort or another by one side or another. And yet people are still writing on TripAdvisor and about water shortages a couple of miles from the carnage.

You couldn't make that up.

It's All In The News

One of the things that struck me when I first went to New Zealand in 2005 was that there was to some extent no such thing as local television news in the way that news is local in the UK.  There are no regional TV News programmes.  On the other hand there is another way of looking at it: that all news in New Zealand is local - regardless of where it happens.  So having been back in Scotland for half a year this email from TVNZ struck me as peculiar.

Am I the only one to feel this?

In case, by the way, you are wondering to what I am referring it is the item about a woman refusing to pay her rates.

The Mystery Solved

One of the problems with getting all your up to date news about the Island from a web-based news provider is that if you have no access to the internet you don't know what is happening.  There's no way the North of Scotland is going to make the Scottish TV news either at the moment because the only news is the Commonwealth Games.  So last night when I went onto Hebrides News I discovered why we had had no usable internet access.  

What irritates me is not that BT had the problem but that they didn't tell their call-centre staff so many people wasted lots of time getting false information and new routers which were completely unnecessary.  I spent 75 minutes whilst a very efficient and helpful lady in India did every test known to her and said there were no line faults that she could find (and who didn't patronise me when I told her that I'd done all the usual tests on my own equipment) before eventually referring the matter to a 'special unit' who would ring me back between 5 and 7pm the next day.  They usually do.  This time they didn't.  Black mark BT.  I've been a customer since the age of 26.  You won't lose me over this but you certainly lost a lot of brownie points.

HEBRIDES NEWS:

Communications fault black outs internet and maritime radio  23/7/14

Some 3,000 island homes and businesses have been hit by a major communications blackout over the past two days.

Faulty equipment at BT’s mainland telephone exchange at Gairloch resulted in a very poor quality signal being transmitted over the main microwave link from the mainland to a receiver at Holm, by Stornoway, which feeds into the islands broadband network.

The parts of Lewis - mainly around the Stornoway area - served by BT were hit with many users having no service at all while others suffered slow broadband speeds over the period.

BT pledged the broadband network would be repaired by Wednesday night.

A BT spokesman said: “A faulty card in the telephone exchange at Gairloch has resulted in a degraded broadband service on the radio link to Stornoway.

“Around 3,000 broadband-users in the Western Isles are affected.

“A replacement card has been sourced and is being couriered to Gairloch with an estimated time of arrival of around 5pm.

“We’d like to apologise for the current poor quality of the broadband service but we’re aiming to restore normal service within the next couple of hours.”

Important coastguard and maritime radio services for the west coast of Scotland were knocked out and Stornoway coastguard was unable to transmit weather and navigation warnings.

In case of an emergency at sea, volunteers coastguards were sent to prominent hills with hand-held radios and mobile phones to relay any distress messages or situation reports with the main coastguard control room in Stornoway.

Coastguards radio systems’ were back on air earlier on Wednesday but the island’s  BT’s broadband links continued to be affected.

People paying fines by bank card at Stornoway Sheriff Court were turned away as their IT systems were down completely.

Many island businesses could not get on the internet to check e-mails or get in touch with clients. 

Bronchiectasis

Not very long ago a doctor asked me what the scar on my back was from. The answer was a the removal of half of my right lung when I was 16. I had suffered for several years from bronchiectasis. It's a very debilitating disease allowed to get a hold, in my case, by cross country running and playing football all winter when I had bronchitis. I went to a school where a note from your parents did not excuse you from any school physical activities.

The doctor seemed quite perplexed and made a rather odd remark but I didn't think anything more about it.  Until, that is, a few months ago when I was watching Seven Sharp a TVNZ programme akin to the UK's One Show when it showed this footage of Esther-Jordan Muriwai: a name which, until that moment, had meant nothing to me.

Today I was about to write my Thankful Thursday post and mention my bronchiectasis.  I decided to see how Esther-Jordan was.  I was taken aback to discover that she died yesterday - my birthday.  The  anniversary of our son, Andy's death and of the father of one of my closest friends.   

The TVNZ news article reads:

Inspiring young woman Esther Jordan Muriwai - Source: Te Karere

Young Māori woman’s legacy lives on

For 14 years Esther Jordan Muriwai was in and out of hospital battling a respiratory disease called bronchiectasis. Last night her battle came to a heart-rending end, she was 24. Having founded the Bronchiectasis Foundation and the Northland Bronchiectasis Support Group, Esther dreamed to help the few in NZ who are suffering from the same illness that took her life.

Until that programme made me look more closely at the disease I had lived for over 50 years in blissful ignorance of how near I had come to being in a similar situation.  I had worked in the hospital but until I saw that programme I had only come across one other person with the disease and he was operated on on the same day as I was.  He died a few days later.

I, on the other hand, have never had the slightest sign of any respiratory problems since I was discharged from hospital with a clean bill of health all those years ago.

Since the original programme I have become aware, however, of the extent of the disease in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands' communities.  I have also developed an admiration for the positive attitude and hard work that Esther-Jordan has put into bronchiectasis awareness and support to sufferers and their families.

I shall continue with my Thankful Thursday post separately but I shall also be thankful for the life and work and positive attitude that Esther-Jordan has brought to this world.

All's Quiet on the Eagleton Front

At just after midday CJ and Jo left for Ullapool and a leisurely journey taking about 4 or 5 days to get home through the West Highlands and the Lake District.  After a wet morning the rain stopped and a breeze got up and the sun peeked out occasionally so I manage to get the washing all done and dried and some maintenance done outside before dinner.

It's a strange feeling after 6 weeks with CJ and then CJ and Jo here to have no one in the house tonight except me.  A friend will be here tomorrow night and then I have about 10 days to get things done in the house and garden before I leave for Glasgow and France and a wedding in Callander at the end of the month.

Yesterday I managed to sort out all my travel arrangements and also discovered that my flights for NZ had all been altered too.  Hopefully all is now sorted and I can relax.

The upshot of all this is that I've hardly been in Blogland since last Friday.

Hopefully I'll manage to make up for that over the next 10 days!

In the meantime I'll leave you with a wave: